Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait

Falls are common and often a devastating problem especially amongst the elderly, causing a substantial amount of morbidity, mortality and extensive use of health care services such as premature nursing home admissions. Majority of these falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors...

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Main Author: Chia, Avian Yuan Kai.
Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54096
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author Chia, Avian Yuan Kai.
author2 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
author_facet School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Chia, Avian Yuan Kai.
author_sort Chia, Avian Yuan Kai.
collection NTU
description Falls are common and often a devastating problem especially amongst the elderly, causing a substantial amount of morbidity, mortality and extensive use of health care services such as premature nursing home admissions. Majority of these falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors (e.g. unsteady gait), and studies has shown that the rates of falling can be significantly reduced when attention are shown to these risk factors. 2 groups of participants were studied upon, namely the elderly participants and the young participants. 14 healthy young participants and 15 healthy elderly participants of various heights and weights participated in the experiment, which consisted of 15 different protocols, required to be completed in a 2.5 hour session. The aim of the study was to study the dual task effects of cognitive tasks and physical load carriage on level walking. Results for the anterior-posterior margin of stability (MOS) were the main concerns in this study, the MOS was used to quantify the gait stability while performing these protocols, also to find out which component in the working memory model would affect walking gait more significantly. It can be said that gait stability was significantly affected with the factor of age difference, where the elderly are physically less abled in comparison with the young. Utilisation of the VSSP and the phonological store (under the phonological loop component) of the working memory model was more significant in affecting the lower anterior-posterior MOS as compared to the central executive and articulatory rehearsal components of the working memory model. The conclusions derived from this project serve well to the future researchers and engineers, especially those who are working on the field of human factors and ergonomics, to understand causes and effects of gait instability and in developing interventions to minimize the risk of falls especially amongst the elderly.
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spelling ntu-10356/540962023-03-04T18:36:51Z Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait Chia, Avian Yuan Kai. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Centre for Human Factors and Ergonomics Qu Xingda DRNTU::Engineering Falls are common and often a devastating problem especially amongst the elderly, causing a substantial amount of morbidity, mortality and extensive use of health care services such as premature nursing home admissions. Majority of these falls are associated with one or more identifiable risk factors (e.g. unsteady gait), and studies has shown that the rates of falling can be significantly reduced when attention are shown to these risk factors. 2 groups of participants were studied upon, namely the elderly participants and the young participants. 14 healthy young participants and 15 healthy elderly participants of various heights and weights participated in the experiment, which consisted of 15 different protocols, required to be completed in a 2.5 hour session. The aim of the study was to study the dual task effects of cognitive tasks and physical load carriage on level walking. Results for the anterior-posterior margin of stability (MOS) were the main concerns in this study, the MOS was used to quantify the gait stability while performing these protocols, also to find out which component in the working memory model would affect walking gait more significantly. It can be said that gait stability was significantly affected with the factor of age difference, where the elderly are physically less abled in comparison with the young. Utilisation of the VSSP and the phonological store (under the phonological loop component) of the working memory model was more significant in affecting the lower anterior-posterior MOS as compared to the central executive and articulatory rehearsal components of the working memory model. The conclusions derived from this project serve well to the future researchers and engineers, especially those who are working on the field of human factors and ergonomics, to understand causes and effects of gait instability and in developing interventions to minimize the risk of falls especially amongst the elderly. Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) 2013-06-13T07:56:37Z 2013-06-13T07:56:37Z 2013 2013 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54096 en Nanyang Technological University 82 p. application/pdf
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering
Chia, Avian Yuan Kai.
Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title_full Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title_fullStr Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title_full_unstemmed Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title_short Interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
title_sort interacting effects of physical and cognitive loads on walking gait
topic DRNTU::Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54096
work_keys_str_mv AT chiaavianyuankai interactingeffectsofphysicalandcognitiveloadsonwalkinggait